Leveling Up the Shop: Miter Station

After too much time of using the miter saw the floor, I finally made the leap and built a solid miter station that does double duty of providing my shop ample, much needed, storage.

With 4 cabinets, 16 drawers, and an adjustable height top for the miter saw itself, it leaves little to be desired.

My ultimate miter station at 22 feet long with 16 drawers and 4 spacious cabinets, topped off with satin nickel handles.

The cabinets feature adjustable shelves using pins and soft close hinges. The drawers come in only 2 sizes to streamline the build a bit but still give some flexibility. They also have soft close drawer slides as an added bonus.

The reason for the adjustable top was to provide flexibility as I had a Kobalt miter saw at the time but had my eyes on the Festool Kapex and had been saving my pennies for one. Since the two have different work heights, it only made sense to make the top adjustable.

To make the top adjustable I used 4 long bolts and t-nuts in the main carcass. Using a wrench I can dial in the height of each corner to get the miter saw’s work surface in line and level with the counter tops that flank it.

I drilled a hole using a hole saw in the adjustable top in the back corner and then through the carcass top below it to allow a dust collection hose and power cords to run through. Using a (type of switch box) it automatically turns on the vacuum when the saw turns on and then runs it for 5 seconds after the saw turns off. Granted that dust collection is hard with a miter saw, it does seem to at least help a little bit.

For the work surface of the counter tops, I opted to do two layers of 3/4” plywood and topped it with Formica. This was a relatively cheap solution (as opposed to solid maple top like my workbench that I briefly contemplated). The Formica is fairly sturdy and when wood glue inevitably falls on it and dries, it easily scrapes off with just a piece of scrap wood.

This thing is great though, I can’t wait to clutter the massive countertop because I “am too busy” to put things away.